“You think so?”
He could hear the smile in her voice when she said, “If I make the argument, absolutely.”
Welcome back, Catherine.
* * *
Michael and Matt were still driving back to Spokane when Matt received a call from an unfamiliar number.
“Costa.”
“Hello, is this SAC Mathias Costa?”
“Yes.”
“This is Special Agent Tammy Sherman from the Seattle field office. I was sent to Tacoma to follow up on Glen Hamilton.”
“Did you make contact?”
“He wasn’t home. His neighbor said that he travels a lot for work and she hasn’t seen him since the middle of February, and then only for two or three days. Before that, it was January.”
“I need a current photo of Hamilton, if you can get that for me. And follow up with his employer—I’ll text you the information. I talked to them briefly. He works from home, but they didn’t say anything about travel. I want to know if his company is aware that Hamilton hasn’t been in Tacoma in nearly two weeks. Is he on vacation? Or possibly lying to them about his work location? If he works remotely on a company computer, his employer may be able to track him that way. I want to know anyone he may be close to in his office. Talk to them—find out everything you can about this guy.”
“I’ll do that and get back to you.”
“Thanks, Tammy.”
Matt hung up and considered his options.
“APB?” Michael said.
“I’m thinking yes—but let’s keep it internal for now. Cops only. Not the press. I want every cop to have this guy’s picture. A person of interest—no trigger fingers on this. I don’t want anyone getting the idea that they’re getting justice for two dead cops by killing my suspect. And dammit, I want a warrant for his phone.”
He sent Tony Greer a priority text message that they had a number for Hamilton from his aunt. He wasn’t asking for a phone tap, just a warrant for records, so maybe Tony could craft an argument that would get it.
“I’m going to tell Maddox and Corrigan that we have our guy,” Matt said. “They in particular need to be on alert, Michael. We need to get back pronto.”
“Thirty more minutes, boss. I’m busting past eighty.”
Matt sent the information he learned to everyone on the team. He didn’t want anyone caught unawares.
“We’re close. I feel it.”
But time was running out—Matt feared they wouldn’t find him before he struck.
Failure is not an option.
39
Liberty Lake
6:45 p.m.
Glen Hamilton’s plan was simple in its brilliance.
He’d had to make adjustments because of the newspaper article that said all cops would be riding with a partner until the Triple Killer was caught.
Triple Killer. What a stupid name. What did it mean? Nothing.
But they had given him a name. He was important enough for that. That had to mean something, right?
Deputy Chief Brian Maddox was his last prey; there would be no substitute. Maddox had taken everything important from him. If it weren’t for Maddox, his father wouldn’t have been evicted from the only real home Glen ever had.
He had been given no chance to intervene. He was never even aware the bank took all their stuff—no one had bothered to contact him! Maddox should have told him, giving him a chance to retrieve his things. But no one told him all the family belongings would be sold. Everything! No one gave him a chance to save anything.
His mother’s sewing machine.
His mother’s pretty vase collection where she would put the roses she’d cut from her garden, beautiful flowers that added hope and cheer to a dark house.
His mother’s clothes. They were only things that Glen imagined might still smell like her.
He didn’t care about his own things—toys he’d outgrown, outdated video games, broken furniture, his sagging mattress.
He wanted his mom back, and the house was his mom.
And then everything was gone. Stolen from him, just like his mother.
Originally, he’d planned to wait for Maddox at his house when he came home from work. The cop didn’t park in the garage, and there was a perfect hiding spot among the trees that separated the Maddox property from his neighbor. Because Maddox was a large man, Glen wasn’t certain if the drugs would take effect quickly enough, and he couldn’t risk having him struggle or cry out or try to go inside before he collapsed. So he had bought a Taser, practiced with it. It was the most powerful Taser he could buy, and he was pretty certain it would take a big man down instantly. Then he’d poke him with the drugs, drag him into his car, and keep him under lock and key until midnight. Until 12:01 a.m. when he could slice him open and watch him bleed out.
He wouldn’t use Maddox’s own car to transport him, because Maddox always drove home in a truck from Spokane PD. That meant there would be GPS tracking, and he would be far easier to find. Hamilton would have to use his own car—not ideal, but he was confident he would be far away from Spokane before the FBI figured anything out.
Then he’d lie low for a long, long time.
But only after you take care of the intruders first. They don’t deserve the house. No one deserves Mom’s house.
No, he would wait awhile before returning to his family’s Liberty Lake house. He could disappear a long time—he had the skills, the patience. Hide close by, like in Coeur d’Alene. Wait for everything to die down. Quit his job—he had enough money to live on for a year, or more. His three shell companies, where he’d put half of every paycheck; his savings account, which he had wisely invested.
He was smart, frugal, patient.
And he could adapt to anything they threw at him. Brian Maddox would not survive the next twenty-four hours.
* * *
The first sign that Glen had to change his original plan was when Maddox came home with a female cop. He was quite a distance away, so he couldn’t make out her features. The air had turned icy and she had a hat and scarf on. Snow would be coming, sooner rather than later.
But the setup was still the same. The best place to grab Brian Maddox was still on the other side of the garage, where he parked his truck. As he’d done every morning when he went to work, Maddox would first go out to the vehicle and turn it on to let it warm up five to ten minutes, then go back inside to get his coffee, before he came back out to leave.
Every. Single. Morning.
When Maddox didn’t work, he would go through a similar ritual. On Sundays he and his wife and kids went to church, then out to breakfast at a diner in Liberty Lake that had been around since long before Glen was born. Everyone went there. Glen had only gone once since he’d been back in town because he didn’t want to stand out. The food was good, but not as good as his mother’s cooking.
Maddox worked half days on Sundays and was off Saturdays. Mondays through Thursdays he worked the early shift. On Fridays he started his day a little later. He’d take his youngest son to school, then run errands.
His wife worked from a home office in the garage, and had a couple people who helped her. They would come after Maddox was gone and the kids were off to school, sometime between nine and ten. Not really on a tight schedule. One woman worked until two-thirty because she had kids to pick up from school—he knew, because he followed her once. The other was a guy who left between four and five. He was not much older than Maddox’s oldest son. He wore his hair long and took a lot of smoke breaks.
Glen hadn’t been here earlier today, but it had been the same ritual for weeks, and he didn’t expect it to change.
Now the only real window of time to grab Maddox was in the morning before he left for work. Kill him quickly there in his driveway. It had to be done and done fast.
Glen considered grabbing Maddo
x now, but with his family home and the other cop inside his house he had no guarantee he could get to him.
Glen did not like the odds. His previous successes had all been because he attacked his victims when they were alone—when they were weak, distracted, vulnerable.
He didn’t want to storm the house. Too risky.
He circled in his car, then parked in a driveway far down the street. He’d surveyed the neighborhood many times. The owner of this particular house was an airline pilot; his schedule was erratic. He had left two days ago and would likely not return for another day or three. The houses were spread far apart, and there were many trees, but Glen couldn’t risk any neighbor spotting an unfamiliar car and calling the police. He had to be quick.
He left his car and walked in the shadows across the street, through the open space between two houses, and into the open field behind Maddox’s house. The snow from the last storm had all melted because there were few trees in the field to provide cover, but tomorrow’s storm would bring it back. The grass was long enough to obscure him in the dark of night from the prying eyes of neighbors as he made his way to Maddox’s house.
The house had a pool in the back with a safety fence around it. There were enough trees and shrubs to hide in, so he edged closer. Though he wore a thick jacket, gloves, and a hat, the cold seeped under his skin. He couldn’t stay out here too long.
But he’d stay as long as he could.
Glen watched the house from just outside the property line. Maddox and the female cop were in the living room. The back blinds were all open, and when they turned on the lights, it was easy for Glen to see inside. No one else was home. If the wife was home, the lights would have already been on. He glanced toward the garage, which was dark—no one appeared to be working late.
No wife, no little kid. The youngest boy was never left home alone.
Glen frowned. The wife wasn’t there. The boys weren’t there. This was unusual. They were always home at night. Sometimes the older boys had things after school, but it was late, well after the dinner hour. The family always ate together... Just like Glen had eaten with his parents every night until his mother’s senseless death.
The female cop walked to the back of the house and closed all the blinds. Glen could no longer see in. She looked familiar, but Glen wasn’t surprised—he’d spent a lot of time over the last two months watching the police station, and all the cops that went in and out. She wasn’t in uniform but she could have changed at the station, he supposed. Or maybe she was a detective.
He took a deep breath, let it out. Cold enough for snow. It might snow tonight, and definitely tomorrow, according to the forecast. A major storm coming in quickly. Snow would make it easier for the cops to track him.
Maybe there was a logical reason that the wife and kids were gone, not because Maddox was suspicious. Because they could not know whom he intended to kill. They. Could. Not.
He should have grabbed Maddox earlier tonight as he went into the house. Hit the female cop over the head, drugged Maddox. Or, maybe he could find a way to lure the female cop outside, zap her with the Taser, then go in and get Maddox.
Too risky. If Maddox heard anything, he’d have his gun out.
Glen didn’t want to die.
Tomorrow morning. That was the only real option now, he was sure. When Maddox came out to warm up the car, zap.
Waste no time. Kill him right there. Stab him in the gut and slice him all the way through.
Fast. He had to do it fast before the female cop came out.
Simple. Effective. Dead.
He closed his eyes. Rage would not serve him well, and he felt it creeping in, eating at his gut. He had survived so long doing what had to be done because he learned to control his actions. He learned patience and self-denial. He learned that he couldn’t act without thinking through every possible outcome, planning for every contingency.
He learned the hard way, fifteen years ago. When he finally had the courage to confront his father...
* * *
Glen walked up the weed-strewn path of the house he’d grown up in, pulling his jacket tight around his body. It was so cold he felt he’d never be warm again.
A For Sale sign was on the lawn. No way would he allow his father to sell this house. It would not happen! He couldn’t let it happen...
He knocked on the door.
No answer.
He pounded.
No answer.
He tried the knob. It was locked.
Anxiety bordering on panic, he ran around to the back door and tried it. Locked. He twisted and shook the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. “Zachary!” he shouted. “Let me in!”
He wasn’t afraid of his weak, drunk father. He came here to do what he should have done years ago. Maybe if he’d had the courage to kill his old man when he was thirteen, his mother would never have been out in the car that night in the storm. She would never have died and left him.
Glen broke the window of the back door, reached in and unlocked the dead bolt. Then he entered his family home and stopped in the middle of the kitchen.
It was empty.
There was nothing inside. No kitchen table with the red-checked vinyl tablecloth.
No whimsical plates of kittens and puppies over the threshold to the dining room.
No food, no dishes, no curtains.
Slowly, he walked from room to room, his knife twisting in his hand. It wasn’t a large house; it didn’t take long to realize there was nothing here. Not one piece of furniture. Not one family photo. Everything had been stolen.
He would learn later that the police had arrested his father and the bank foreclosed on the house and all his belongings had been sold. He would learn later that when his dad got out, he left town.
Glen felt a deep loss. As great as losing his mother again. Everything that was Lorna Hamilton was gone. Her body. Her home. Her scent.
Glen left, a dark pit forming in his chest. A thick, growing, overwhelming rage that had only teased him in the past. Now it took over. Now it was part of him. Woven into his nerves like a snake, clutching, squeezing, suffocating him...
He planned to drive back to his aunt’s house, but he couldn’t, not now. He didn’t want to hurt her, and he had to hurt something. Someone. If not his father, someone else.
Glen never remembered how he got to Spokane, or why it was now dark, or why he was driving up and down the streets slowly, looking. He didn’t know why until he saw the drunk stumbling down, falling behind a dumpster.
Pathetic, drunk fool.
Just like his old man.
He stopped his car and got out. Approached the man. As he neared, he didn’t see the old bum with the red bulbous nose or the long, greasy gray hair. He saw Zachary Hamilton, the man who had sired him, the man who had scared his mother, the man who drank himself out of more jobs than Glen could count.
“Do you need a ride? The church down the street is offering beds for the night.”
“Go away,” the drunk slurred.
“Really, I don’t mind. I’m doing community service and want to help. It’s going to be ten degrees tonight. You’ll freeze to death. Literally.”
Maybe because he looked normal, he looked nice, the bum pulled himself up and staggered over to Glen’s car. Glen helped him into the back seat, where he lay down. Glen looked around. It was so late, so cold; no one had seen him. Still, Glen drove as far from town as possible. The drunk didn’t even notice. He was passed out.
He stopped in a park near the river. As soon as he opened the door and started to drag the bum from the back seat, the old man woke up.
“Stop that,” he mumbled.
He was weak. He pushed at Glen, but Glen held fast and pulled the man from the back of the car, dropping him unceremoniously to the ground.
The man grunted, pulled himself up.
Swore at Glen, staggered away.
Glen watched him sit up against the closest tree, pulling his coat against the cold.
And all he could see was his father.
And the knife in his hand.
With a scream, Glen lunged toward the stranger, arm raised, and stabbed him in the chest. So deep that the hilt was buried. He wrestled the knife out of the man’s chest, warm blood coating his hand, his arm, spraying across his face.
“I hate you!” he screamed, and plunged the knife again into the body.
And again. And again. The drunk didn’t fight back. Couldn’t. Weak, pathetic.
He’d stolen everything Glen loved. Now Glen had stolen his life.
And it felt good.
It felt so damn right.
When he was done, he didn’t feel the cold. Not at first, then it seeped back in and logic returned.
He needed to hide the body where it wouldn’t be found for a long time.
He needed to clean up, get rid of the knife, his clothes. Clean his car. Go back home, to his aunt’s house. Wait. Make sure no one saw him. No one found the body. No one could trace this murder to him.
* * *
He was so damn cold...
Glen shook his head and came out of his memory. How long had he been sitting back here, among the trees, watching Brian Maddox’s house, but not seeing anything but his past? He couldn’t be this irresponsible!
He was about to leave when the female cop came out of the house. She walked around the backyard.
She had her gun drawn.
No way she could have heard him out here. He wasn’t even on Maddox’s property and he knew Maddox didn’t have a security system. He knew this spot where he hid couldn’t be seen from the house at night. He wore dark clothes and a dark hat.
Why was this girl cop with him tonight? What were they doing? Paranoid? Did someone suspect his plan?
The Third to Die Page 31